


Serge the not so lonely anymore wolf and friends

by mortianna



Category: James McAvoy - Fandom, Michael Fassbender - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fun, James McAvoy in some roles, James Mcavoy - Freeform, Jessica Chastain as heroine, M/M, Michael Fassbender - Freeform, Michael Fassbender as the other man, Multi, Two brothers, its complicated, one other man, one woman with three men, or more?, some drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:07:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29463258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortianna/pseuds/mortianna
Summary: They worked in my head. And some day they needed to let free again, into the world. Serge, Genevieve and Pierre. Together. As in together. Follow up to Serge the lonely wolf. Before the other Serge things... :-)How would they live together? Would they make it? and new figures turned up.
Relationships: Serge Dupont/Genevieve Dupont Serge Dupont/Pierre Ricard Genevieve Dupont/Pierre Ricard others





	1. Chapter 1

Serge was alone at home on a Wednesday morning. He was leaning out of the window looking at the awakening city. He sipped his strong black coffee and smoked one of his ten cigarettes a day. Yes, he had turned back to smoking, they all did, but he thought he was in control. Wednesday was the day where he didn’t have to buy groceries, they opened only in the afternoon, he had enough left over from Tuesday and the bread would lean at the door when he came to the bar, as usual. He liked that a lot.  
He liked being alone a lot. Being alone in the flat they shared was his highlight of the week, his dirty secret, so to speak. Yes, he loved both Genevieve and Pierre and loved living with them, but being together 24 hours seven days a week was more than he could stand. He was like that, had always been. He had felt guilty for being like that all his life until he found these two. They let him be. Perhaps he was what one of Genevieve’s papers called hypersensitive, nearly autistic. Well, had sounded fair enough to him, but he wouldn’t follow that road. He was as he was period.

He inhaled and looked over the city. He enjoyed it a lot more since he had rationed smoking. He enjoyed every drag. Just as he enjoyed being with Pierre more after a day alone or being with Genevieve after a day with Pierre. Speaking of which: he was still flabbergasted that this worked out after two years. Whenever he remembered that moment back in time where they all three had met in the little room behind the kitchen of the bar, he felt the same sense of wonder. That could have gone totally pear-shaped. He had felt trapped, felt as if he had been caught out having done something, everything wrong. And then it had all turned out miraculously right.  
It had been Pierre who had done the first step. Sensitive, sensible Pierre who had risen to the occasion. He had not run away as he could have done, and nobody, Serge at the latest, could have blamed him for that. It hadn’t been easy for the both of them in that small town, Avignon was not an open-minded town, they had talked about going to Paris or Marseille, but they both wouldn’t, they had their jobs, respectively and they both liked the city as it was. They just wanted it on their terms. And they had made quite a good job with that.  
He didn’t know what they had talked behind their backs, two well-known men in the town, one known to have been married before, the other known for having had more “petits amours” than even Serge himself, but no one ever said anything to their faces. And obviously nothing had reached outside, as Genevieve hadn’t heard of it.

Well, he hadn’t heard of Genevieve living with Etienne in Orange either. It was a small town, like a family, you simply didn’t talk about some things for fear everything would blow up then. Obviously Genevieve had been ghosted by her own family and of course by his and so nobody had known anything about the real situation of the other. Until they met in the little room.  
Serge sipped the last drop of his coffee, looked over at the coffee machine longingly, but decided against it. Better have another coffee later in some bar other than his own. Another hidden pleasure: going out on his own, being served stuff instead serving it himself. Alone. Alone was important. As Frédéric seemed to have stopped his business – come to think of it he hadn’t heard of his brother lately – and the people of the town knew of his relationship with the chef de police and his former and still wife, he wasn’t accosted as much as he used to. He quite liked it that way.  
Serge got up from the window sill and closed the window after having stubbed out the cigarette in the pottered ashtray they had brought from their last visit to Tunisia. They liked to travel a lot and the only limits to that were his bar, their bar and Pierre’s work. He took his work seriously but there wasn’t much crime really in Avignon and nothing his deputy couldn’t handle when they were away, a strong black woman they had invited quite often but still hadn’t managed to meet outside from work because of the working hours in the bar. Of course Pierre saw that differently, but loved travelling so much he was always game for new ideas. The latest ones included a hike through the Alps (the French part), a visit to the Hoggar with a hike and a spa, and a trip to London with a hike through Scotland. The Spa and the London parts were of course Genevieve’s ideas.

The hiking was the man stuff. Serge smiled affectionately and scratched his bare chest. Yes, they did admirably well considering they were three and three was even more difficult to handle than two. And then again, not. He had always been bad at all the stuff women seemed to want apart from - that. He was really good at that, he knew that, but all the emotional stuff women seemed to want all the time, he always felt at a loss to deliver.

A man had to go his way, had he not, and couldn’t be bothered to cater to every whim a woman might have because she didn’t have her own life. That was society’s fault, not his.

Geneviève was different. Had always been. But after the – event –that had broken both their hearts it had become difficult. He could see it now as if from afar, as if it had happened to other people. Geneviève had been devastated, so had he, but he had tried to get on with life, life had to go on, that was a rule, wasn’t it, and she would have needed him to open up and be open to her. He hadn’t been able to do that back then. Simply couldn’t. He would have broken down and never gotten up again. He had to shut his heart down, close the walls of it around the loss and carry on. He had managed to go on living after all. So had she. In a different way. Run away with someone more open. Well. Not good. But understandable, much more now to him. But these times were long ago.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Serge likes to be alone. But he is never for long.

And now Genevieve had two men to drive crazy with her whims if she had them and he had another man to just talk things over like men did and the three of them had something nobody would dare give a name but was much more than each of them alone or even two of them together.

Talking of which … When would Genevieve be back? What had she said when she left earlier with Pierre who always went ridiculously early to the office so to leave early and spend his evenings with the both of them in the bar? Well, after some workout and other stuff he did, even Pierre had his spare time, and was free to do with that what the wanted and not give any account of it, and Genevieve did too, but it was totally unusual for her to get outside the house at this time of the day. Night she would call it, She was a total night animal. Normally she was the last to leave the flat, she had a room in the same building under the roof to herself for her art and she worked there in the morning when the men had left the building and only came to the bar later to do all the nice things to the tables Serge didn’t care about and to serve the customers who came there to eat.

He went into the big bedroom to get a new shirt. He was already wearing his trousers, well, he liked being naked and slept naked too, but wouldn’t want to disturb the neighbours any further who had a hard enough time with them living together. His mother had, too, but his family had made a business out of sweeping stuff under the carpet for so long, they didn’t dare ask. Serge didn’t care either way but he knew Pierre had it harder in his job and he didn’t want his love to be bothered just because he would have loved to sit on the window sill naked. He knew society’s conventions, even if he cared less and less about them.

Serge was now a man in his early forties, Pierre a bit older, Genevieve a bit younger, they had all lived their separate lives and he had lived with either one of them, so they all knew what they were into. They all had a knack for showing society the middle finger, with Pierre perhaps being the most reckless of them all, but in the most vulnerable position concerning his work, but Pierre trusted – and if he did, Serge and Genevieve did too, - that there was no better man for the job and they would keep him no matter what. And why wouldn’t they? France had a lovely tradition of allowing love to happen not only in the boundaries of marriage, but that had been in movies mostly, in books. Or in the cupboard.

Serge didn’t suffer from any form of idiocy towards him and he knew Pierre was always ready to leave and go live in Portugal or somewhere else where the waves were high as a surf teacher, Genevieve could do the work she loved everywhere, only he himself was rather partial to living in Avignon and work in his own little bar. He even sang more now, yes, he was happy. There were things missing in his life, but he never had had these and now they surely wouldn’t come anymore, so this was the best and it was enough. More than enough.

Serge looked around, grabbed his keys, his mobile and his purse and left the flat. He looked at his watch. Okay, more than ample time to have another coffee at his favourite bar at the Pont. The one Genevieve had found him in the other day, these two years ago. He moved through the little alleys of the town fluently, like a fish in water really, nodded to some people who nodded at him and if he got a weird look he showed his most sublime superior half smile. He reached the bar, entered and stood at the bar counter for not more than a minute before the barman put his café and the petit rouge in front of him. Serge nodded.  
It was a lovely day in early October, so Serge took his drinks and went outside. Second cigarette of the day. The joy! He sat down, lighted it and puffed away, then took a sip of the coffee and then the first sip of the red wine. Ah yes! He didn’t drink much, well, he did some times, but he could always break the habit. He did that at times, drinking only water and coffee for a week, he hated water, it was so tasteless, but he had to concede it did him good. And everything tasted so much better afterwards.  
He looked at the river. His favourite part of town. The Rhone. The old man river of France. Much more than the Seine, in his eyes, which only meant Paris. It was flowing leisurely in its broad bed, cappuccino brown as was the river Thames as he had read, slow enough for the provinces, much too slow for the capital. He didn’t need the sea; this river was enough for him. Pierre though, he came from Marseille, he loved and needed the sea regularly. Serge sat up in his chair and squinted his eyes. There at the river banks, there was something red, something red that looked like…

Serge’s heart stopped and missed a beat. He had never forgotten that night, even if nobody else had any reminiscence of it. They had never talked about it. Perhaps she had forgotten, too, during the coma she had fallen into afterwards, but he doubted it. But every time he saw someone with red hair at the River, his heart stopped. He didn’t trust himself enough to think about what would happen if ever he saw red hair in the river again. Simply wouldn’t. Couldn’t.  
He stood up and put his hand over his eyes to shut out the sun. Yes, it was Genevieve. There weren’t so many red haired people here in the south of France, funny, come to think of it, how he ended up with them both. She was … no she was not going into the water, she was only very close to it, might be on a stroll, thinking to herself, she loved doing that, needed it, and yes, that was okay, but he had never seen her at the River, not since then and the sight brought back the memory and he nearly choked on the smoke in his lungs and the wine in his mouth, and he exhaled slowly and took a deep breath and then she looked up, as if she felt his presence, these 200 metres away and smiled, this broad wide happy smile that could turn into loud contagious laughter any time. Much like that of Pierre. Funny, how he only ever noticed these things from afar, how similar the two loves of his life were.  
SERGE series 2 chapter 9  
She waved now and he waved back and his heart felt normal again, nearly normal, it felt the joy of meeting her without being prepared, well, it was a small town, but well… She now moved into his direction and some part of him wanted to run to her, take her into his arms, make sure she was okay, was safe, but no, he wouldn’t, couldn’t do that, he was not a little boy, he was a grown man, and so he stood there and waited until she was close. She looked gorgeous, the flaming red hair, the dress much too light for October but perfectly right for this unexpectedly warm October morning and for showing off her shape.

Then she was there, a little breathless, because she had had to run up from the River bench and laughing all the way and then she jumped against him and he took her into his arms and kissed her eyelids and her wide mouth and the happiness washed over him so that he pulled her closer and moved her around himself as on a carousel. She laughed and strampled with her legs and screamed and shouted: “Let go of me Serge, I’ll be sick”, and he felt like 25 again.

But of course he let her down. “Where have you been?”, he asked when she stood on her own feet again. She opened the mouth to answer and she looked radiant but he stopped her, thinking of his upbringing: “you want coffee and wine too? I’ll fetch you some!?” and her smile dimmed a bit, which he found strange, but didn’t think of it, and said: “Yes, only coffee for me, please” and Serge went indoors to fetch two black coffees and brought them out and they spoke of something else and Serge forgot his bad feelings when he had spotted her at the River and went on with living as he had always done.


	3. III.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another person enters the scene. And leaves again. Pierre, the lover of both Serge and Genevieve. Yeah, it's complicated.

A car came driving by with the wheels screeching, sliding and coming to a halt some 100 meters away from them. Serge and Genevieve had sat down at one of these little tables and looked up now. The car came now sliding back to them in reverse gear and stopped right in front of them, not really touching their feet. Serge wrinkled his nose. He knew only one person in Avignon who drove like that and he wasn’t allowed to anymore, strictly speaking.

But of course a tall man with reddish blond hair, slim to the point of being skinny, yet totally fit looking jumped out of the car. “Pierre”, said Genevieve and smiled. Serge looked at her. That had sounded strange too, then he looked at Pierre who came with long strides of his long legs around the car at them. Pierre didn’t just walk, he almost ran. There were the moments when Serge hated being smaller, he had to do double the work to achieve the same, but hadn’t he always?! He squinted his eyes and looked up at the man who looked down at them both, his face not yet decided between a lot of emotions Serge couldn’t all fathom, so the closest description would be stony, Serge thought. Pierre was exceptionally good at stony.

“Bonjour, mes amis”, said Pierre and bowed down to kiss Genevieve on both cheeks and then Serge. Serge was still looking at the car, a dark limousine, totally discreet looking but hiding a lot. Just like – no, Pierre was everything but not striking but hiding, yes hiding a lot under these looks of his. “That’s the company car reserved for the big things”, Serge said. “Aren’t there drivers to drive you? I thought you had an … agreement to not drive here”.

Pierre grinned. He did that often, like a shark, a grin that was so dazzling most people wouldn’t dare to probe any further. Serge was not like most people. “Come on, what are you doing? You’re the boss, I know, but there are the bureaucrats, they’d be just so happy to get a piece of your ass”.  
Pierre and Genevieve both looked at Serge. Who grinned and was trying unsuccessfully not to show it. Both Genevieve and Pierre shook their heads as if this language was totally beneath them. Serge stood taller and eyed them both with his left eyebrow raised as high as it went and dared them to come in onto him together. They didn’t.  
Pierre coughed. “Was on my way out of town when I saw you. Well, drove here specially because I thought I might catch a glimpse of you. Was right, obviously”. Serge shook his head disapprovingly. “Where are you going?” Pierre’s face turned even stonier. “You know I can’t tell you”. Serge had a really bad word on the tip of his tongue but stopped himself and took a sip of his rouge. It tasted like ash.

Genevieve didn’t have any of his natural inhibitions. Or wine. “Oh come on Pierre, don’t you dare play mystery man with us. I believe we know you inside out. Speaking of …” “No we are not speaking of this right now”, returned Pierre and his voice had so much steel in it, a metal bender would have had a field day. Serge cringed inwardly. This was Genevieve, never backing down. And this was Pierre having his principles. And here was he, just wanting to sip his coffee and wine in peace and yes, of course wanting to know why one of the loves of his life drew this posh car and where and when he would be back. But of course he wouldn’t ask ever.  
“I must away. On business. And you know totally well I can’t tell you where or what about”, said Pierre now, rubbing his forehead and his hair which stood up like something the cat had slept in. Genevieve made a face. “Well, okay then, off you go. Au revoir. Or not?”  
Serge tried to hide another laugh unsuccessfully when he saw Pierre’s face. Don’t mess with this woman, mate, when you want a peaceful life. He had been, was used to it, but Pierre had been only in on the specialties of living with Genevieve for a year and she managed to still baffle him with her intentional rudeness.  
“I hope to see the both of you again and soon”, said Pierre now and tried to hold Serge’s gaze. “I trust you can manage without me”. “Did most of my life”, muttered Genevieve, “will be fun not falling over all your stuff all the time”. “Oh, I didn’t put that away, I’m sorry”, said Pierre happily, and Serge admired him for that, “it’s only me that’s going, not my stuff”.  
Serge grabbed Genevieve at the upper arms just before she could jump and tackle Pierre. There were already some people looking on even if he couldn’t see them, they were there and he just didn’t want to make his life even more of a spectacle than needs be, merci beaucoup.

“Au revoir, amour”, said Serge and hugged Pierre close with Genevieve between them. It was awkward and everything but it was – them. “Take care and come back. And yes, we’ll survive. At least I’ll try. Try too, please.” “Wäh”, said Pierre and after another long gaze he jumped away and in the car and was gone.  
“So", said Serge and turned around to the table, “what were you going to do next? Scratch my eyes out as you couldn’t get to him?” Genevieve sent him a withering look. “I’m going to work now. There’s a statue of stubborn manliness I’m just in the mood to finish. You?”  
Serge looked at his watch. “I’m gonna carry my stubborn manliness into the bar and get to work, too. Come and see me there later?” Genevieve looked at him and her gaze went milder. “Of course I will, petit chou”. With that she moved into Serge and kissed him breathless, then turned around and went away with her dress blowing in the wind behind her. Serge closed his mouth when he noticed it stood open, drank the rest of his wine and went away into the other direction after allowing himself a big sigh. Some things never changed. She turned him on no end and drove him mad at the same time. She must have been to a school for especially gifted capricious ones. Or she had invented the word.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is some chapters from insta put together. How Pierre and Serge came together. More mysteries solved. And new ones... The way they live together, two men with the ex wife or one of them :-)

Serge walks to his bar. Genevieve walks to their flat. Pierre drives on the Autoroute sept south. Whose path are we going to follow first?  
Genevieve is still angry and hurt. Men! Always having something important to do or do the dishes on you, aka bringing coffee and wine. She would have needed something else completely but these guys … From all the men in the world she had to choose exactly these two. Well choose. Not exactly. What should, could she have done, after she discovered Serge was with a man, a very good looking one to boot? He was her husband after all and it was her damn right to look what he was up to when she discovered these pics on the internet. Luring women in… Yes, he was good at that, he really was, and even if it hadn’t been him, but his useless brother, the father of that other useless guy… Oh merde! Men! Of all the useless creatures in the world. Why couldn’t she live with a dog? Two dogs? Or cats? Goldfish? No. It had to be – them. And if she was truly honest to herself, okay, she wasn’t as a rule, but still, on normal days it was just great. Serge had become far more open through Pierre and Pierre was just so great in his own right, even if he hadn’t been the lover of her husband already, she would have been interested in him. And they were the greatest lovers she ever had. Etienne had only been a boy after all. 

Genevieve enters the flat and looks around. The living room, the bed room, the other bed room. The big kitchen like in a movie. It smells of smoke. Serge must have been smoking outside the window again. He thinks the smoke doesn’t get into the rooms then, but of course he is not right in that. As in so many things.  
Genevieve gets angry again, but the walk through the flat soothes her. Yes, you can see different styles and different things people like here, but it is a home. A true home. Her gaze falls onto the large pic of them all, taken in Hammamet the year before, blue and white and the red of her hair. A great pic. All of them laughing, hugging and she remembers the moment vividly, a moment of pure and utter joy. And that is the truth. The truth in a picture. Reality is different, harder, but the truth is there underneath. Always. Genevieve sighs, drops her dress and dons some working clothes, then goes upstairs into her atelier and hammers at her statue of stubborn manliness in metal.  
Serge walks to his bar. He greets the people who greet him on his way, he doesn’t greet them first, he is careful not to have more on his sleeve than needs be. That woman! That man! Really. What was it Geneviève had wanted? Why had she suddenly become so – stubborn? And Pierre! Always being the sensible one, had he now taken to being the secretive one? He wasn’t allowed to drive in Avignon, strictly speaking, he was a great driver, too great really for such a little town and everything could happen to him on a road… Man, he thought like a housewife of the fifities. It was a disgrace. Pierre was a grown up, he did what he had to do just as he himself did. Serge came to the little rue in which his bar was located and saw the bread leaning at the door from afar, and a young female figure next to it. Serge smiled. A man must do what a man has to do.

Pierre was driving south, to Marseille. He smiled and whistled all the way. He loved driving, that part had been taken from him since he had been appointed Chief, he was too important to drive himself, they had told him. He hadn’t believed a word of it. Going after the delinquents in a car had always been one of the highs in this job, in the good old times, in Marseille. Good old times, well or not so good. He really had met the love of his life in Serge, hadn’t been looking, of course not, well, had been looking but in all the wrong places, it seemed. Had found him in the bar these three years ago – he had had a really bad and long day at the office, there were so many things he didn’t like in his new job, like having to talk to assholes in high places and being inside for most of the day, sitting on his ass which got wider and wider from no use and he had really needed a drink and everything had looked closed and then he had seen a light and stumbled into Serge’s bar. The door had been open, the lights dimmed, there had been nobody there, apart from a drunken Serge at the piano playing and singing and crying into his rouge. And suddenly everything seemed to make sense to Pierre, him being here in Avignon instead of the far more interesting Marseille, him staying here, him being on the lookout for something, anything to happen to make sense of it all. Him coming into this small rue and into this bar. At this exact time and place. He hadn’t believed his feelings, of course not. What couldn’t be, couldn’t be. But by the end of the night they had known each other’s secrets and how much or little the other could drink and when they had left the bar in the early morning light – another awful cliché, but felt so true nonetheless -, they had kissed each other on the cheek to say good-bye, the French way, and then locked eyes, because both of them had felt the jolt going through them. And that had been it.

Pierre went onto the brake last minute as a lorry beside him had the gorgeous idea to just go in front of him. “Putain de bordel de merde”. Pierre tried to breathe regularly. That had been close. He had to be careful. He loved a spark in life, but didn’t want to die just yet. Even if he was not looking forward to the job he had to do in Marseille. Curious, yes, that he was. Hopefully it would all work out in the end. As it had with Geneviève. He had thought his life was at an end when he saw Serge and her sitting on the floor, clearly stricken and smitten and deep into each other. But even that – had only been a starting point for something greater.   
Pierre was a big believer that everything bad could also turn out as a new start. That’s why he had taken on the drive to Marseille in the first place.   
At last he entered the big city, traffic was a disaster as usual, but somehow he managed to get to the police department, greeted some fellows who still knew him and asked to see a certain prisoner. He was brought into a room where there was nothing else than a table and two chairs, one on either side. The door was closed behind them. The prisoner looked up with the biggest bluest eyes Pierre had seen only once before. “You really look a lot like him!”, he said and sat down. The man snorted and started to laugh. It was a bitter laugh. “You come here because of him, too, don’t you? They always do”.

Serge moved a bit faster. Still cool but faster. The young woman, nearly a girl, looked at him coming at her. He grinned. She smiled. She had a really beautiful face and large blue eyes. Serge moved close to kiss her. Regular French kiss to say bonjour, nice to meet you. “You’re late”, the young woman said. Serge shrugged. “Sorry. Can’t be helped. Family affair”. The young woman raised an eyebrow at him. “Another one?” Serge shrugged again, then laughed. “There’s a lot of family”. The girl smiled, then fetched the bread and followed him into the dark bar. “Much too much, if you ask me”. Serge stood still and looked at her in the darkness. “No. I don’t. And don’t say such things. You profit from it, you know that”. The young female bit her lip. He could really be intimidating, even if he wasn’t tall or anything. “Yes. Still it sucks”. Serge sighed. “Yes, it does. Get the bread into the kitchen and start the coffee machine before you do anything else, will you?” The girl curtsied. “As you wish, boss”. Serge laughed out aloud. This day promised to get better and better after all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more actors, more fun. Serge and his lovers. Everybody has their secrets.  
> James McAvoy as lonely wolf turned the centre of a menage a trois with Fassbender and Chastain. Well, in a French movie :-)

They worked their way through the day; the moment Serge opened, the usual people entered the bar, some for a coffee, some for a petit rouge, some for a pastis, some even for a beer. The girl was in the kitchen, filling small glasses with nuts and stuff so that the people had something to bite until Serge would prepare some real stuff. He thought about it while filling the cups and glasses and doing the usual small talk –these customers came every day, not much had happened since he had seen them last, although Serge knew himself that lives could change in the wink of an eye. His had, more often than once. And it would again, in one way or the other, he was sure of that. He smiled when the young woman came out of the kitchen with the prepared glasses and stood them on the bar and the tables. When she had finished, she came behind the bar and put her hands over those of Serge on the beer glass he was just filling for the old drunkard from up the road, his third one. Serge frowned at the girl who laughed at him with her young bright face and the perfect teeth. “I have this”, she said and threw back her blond ponytail, it was fake, Serge was sure of that, but very well done, “you go into your kitchen and work your magic there”. “Aye”, said Serge, grinning and resisting the urge to slap her cheeky grin out of her face, young people, really, he would have gotten quite a mouthful in his time for something like that, but of course things were totally different now and in this case especially. “I trust you do that here”. “Of course I do”, she smiled angelically. Serge scratched his head and went into his kitchen. Peace and quiet and another petit rouge and only vegetables, cheese, some viande and bread as company. What more could a man want?  
Pierre sat down on the chair on the other side of the table and looked at the man. Yes, an uncanny likeness. He nodded to the police officer from Marseille. “I have this. You can leave. No need to listen in”. He knew they would, nonetheless, they had to, so were the rules, but perhaps the other man felt a bit better and got a bit more talkative and ready to give in when he thought Pierre was the good cop. When the other cop had left, he looked at the man on the other side of the table. No. This man didn’t give in. He was already broken but fighting to the end. And he had been played each and every trick by cops much meaner in countries far less civil than France. He had no chance if he wasn’t willing. And that was his strength, Pierre knew that, he was usually up to anything and ready to do anything to make things work.  
“Bonjour Monsieur. Let’s start anew. I apologize for my unprofessional entrée. Je suis Pierre Ricard. Votre nom est – Frédéric Dupont?” The man on the other side of the table looked him up and down intently and didn’t answer. Pierre knew he could stare people down with the best of them and used the moment to look Frédéric up and down himself without showing the intensity of his gaze and the way he compared this man to the one he knew. This one looked a bit low down. Uncared for. Bad food, bad alcohol, too many cigarettes, bad company. Homeless. Nobody who cared for him. This would be hard. He wasn’t sure if he would get this right. And he so wanted to get it right. Serge so deserved to have this problem solved. Pierre knew how it ate at him that his brother was – what he was. He couldn’t have told him. He wouldn’t. And he never would if this didn’t work out. So it had to work out. Pierre tried to breathe regularly and not give the man any reason to not trust him. In his experience it was best to simply be a blank canvas. Not push anything. That never worked, looked only good in movies. Pierre just sat and waited. “Wäh”. The dry lips of the other man moved at last. “But I prefer Freddy".  
Genevieve worked until she was soaked in sweat and her anger gone. Loud music hammered through her atelier, when she lay down her metal tool. She walked around the statue and eyed it. Okay, good, not finished, by far not finished, but going into the right direction. One or two days. But now she had to shower and to dress again and go to the bar. Serge needed her there, of course he would never say so, but the bar went so much better with her female touch. And Serge was really good at cooking and she always fell in love with him again, when on a perfect day, she tasted his boeuf bourgignon or poulet à la crème or Ratatouille sitting at a table when everybody else had left, and he played just for her and sang to her. She smiled when she set to put lotion onto her whole body and looked forward to a nice evening at the bar. With Pierre away she would have her husband all to herself and there were situations where that was just as nice.  
The first persons came for food now. Serge had prepared une potage, a Coq au vin that had been lying in the marinade since yesterday and a vegetable dish close to Ratatouille but with his special flair. The young woman, let’s give her a name, Cécile, had laid the tables, and now served the guests. She did that quite nicely. There were less people at the bar, they would come back later and bring friends, after the diner en famille at home. Serge looked at his watch. Genevieve should be here any minute now, time to get the other woman out of the house, Genevieve never reacted too friendly to the young women, she said he didn’t need them, could do all the work himself until she came, but he wouldn’t listen, far less do what she wanted; this was his bar, okay, most of the day, and it felt like his bar and there were some things he was good at and some things he wasn’t. And there were other reasons for wanting this girl around, so this one specially Geneviève better not find here. 

Serge got out of the door and looked into the road. The usual evening à Avignon, people walking around, decidedly on the lookout for food, food was not anything to be dabbled with here, dining out was a serious thing in the whole of France. In reality, the food in Serge’s bar was far better than in most Restaurants below star level, but he still called it a bar. It was, he insisted, still most people only drank and ate little things, une salade ou quelque chose avec crudités et fromage, and he rather liked being underestimated. It gave him a certain freedom.

Nothing to see of Genevieve. Serge looked inside the bar, everybody had their food, they were eating and talking, the glasses were half full so there was some time for himself. He lit another cigarette. Perhaps it was just as well when Genevieve finally met Cécile. Who now came out to stand close to him, reaching out her hand. He looked at her and gave her his cigarette. “I wanted one for myself”, the girl said. Serge shrugged. “It’s not healthy for you”. The girl made a sound and inhaled deeply, then coughed. Serge smiled. “Too strong for you anyhow”. She gave the cigarette back to him. “It is, isn’t it? And healthier for me when it’s not my own?” Serge just puffed along and didn’t answer.

So you decided to come back to Europe?”, Pierre asked Freddy. Freddy shrugged. “Do you have a cigarette?” Pierre nodded and took his pack of Gauloises out of his trousers. “But I’m afraid, smoking is prohibited here”. Freddy shrugged and showed him a grin that reminded him a lot of Serge in one of his more irresistible moods. “You are the police I thought”. Pierre nodded. “Yes I am”. “You make the rules”. Pierre waged his head. “No. I only make people adhere to them”. Freddy laughed. It was an astonishingly nice laugh. Well, in his trade he sure must have some attractive traits, not only living by photoshopped pics of Serge mostly. “Or punish them when they don’t”. “No”, said Pierre and shook two cigarettes out of the pack. “I only try to catch them and bring them to their punishment. If I have to”. He gave one cigarette to Freddy and took one himself and lighted both. The two men inhaled, eying each other. “Thank you”, said Frederic.

Geneviève left the flat, happy and excited. This evening would be a special evening. She would tell him and … no she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Not him alone. It was all such a mess. Suddenly her mood was completely off. She walked slower, then stood still. At the river again and watched longingly at it. Home. In a way. Her phone rang. Serge. He never would take to writing notes. Serge called. If he did. “Are you coming?” Strange. “Sure. Why are you asking?” “Getting crowded here. Hurry up”. Geneviève looked at the mobile. Even stranger. What was he up to? She looked around. Alone. She hit the name above Serge’s. Wouldn’t be there anyhow. He never was. “Wäh?” “Etienne? Can I talk to you?” Silence. What a bad idea. She hadn’t talked to him since the day she had left him. For his own good. He lived a happy life now up there in Paris without the burden of an older woman. He owed her. “Geneviève? What do you want?” Oh okay, Perhaps he saw it differently. He was so young. “Can I just talk to you? Like against a wall? Please?” Silence again. “What’s with my uncle?” Charming. “He’s not much of a talker”. A snorting laugh. “You always knew that. Had your chance, didn’t you?” Okay, yes, definitely different opinion about her giving him a chance to live on his own. “Etienne, I’m sorry. No, I haven’t forgotten that. It just felt - right”. Silence again. This family would be her death. “The first time or the second?” Now she was silent. Yes, they were no big talkers, the Duponts, none of them, but deep thinkers. Even this baby boy. It hadn’t been all bad with him, or why had she turned to him now without second thought? She sighed, a deep shuddering sound that went through her whole body and she noticed she was crying. “Both times, Etienne, both”. Silence. Then: “Wäh?” Then she told him. “Putain de bordel de merde”, said Etienne. “Thank you very much”, said Genevieve, “you’re completely right though. “Wäh”.


	6. VI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more Serge, Genevieve, Pierre, Frederic, Cecile and Etienne. And yes, it really IS complicated.

Serge was quite angry now. He had all planned out and this woman ruined it all. Again. She should have been here long ago, he would have sent the girl away, but he couldn’t now, there was so much to do, every table occupied, he had had to carry chairs up from the cellar even, and some people had ventured outside as it was a rather friendly October night. He couldn’t send her away and now Geneviève would meet her, this of all things he wanted to prevent, therefore he had called her. He was dancing in his kitchen now, but not from feeling happy, instead he really tried to subdue his anger, and he had to move fast to get everything done, he was alone, wasn’t he, she didn’t even want him to have another help, all the girls were gone to university and this one he had to keep secret from her. When had his life become this mess again? It had all been laid out so nice and quiet and … “Putain de bordel de merde”. Now he had burned himself at the oven in which he kept the birds warm. Cecile came in and was about to order more things, again, dessert, what not, was he a real Restaurant now? And saw his hand and pulled him to the sink and put on the cold water holding his hand and touching his cheek in a mockingly comforting way and which moment would his wife choose to enter but this? Her hair stood instantly on end like in photographs of ancient witches. He would have laughed, hadn’t he been so terrified. “What’s she doing here?”, Geneviève asked and her normally generous mouth looked a very thin line but with the threat of biting both their heads off in an instant. Which was ridiculous, both in the presumed action and his feeling, he had done nothing wrong and Geneviève wasn’t the one to blame anyone for anything.

"Helping me?!”, he said and tried to stare her down. He had had some workout in staring other people down since Pierre had entered his life and was a master at that game. But Geneviève played never by the rules, never ever. She shuffled the young woman away, pulling Serge’s hand out of hers and glared at her. “Meaning exactly what?” Serge was quite sure she didn’t notice that she was pressing his burnt hand hard. Quite but not completely. “Serving the guests?”, the young woman said, going to the other side of the kitchen for bandages and salve. “Helping him with whatever he wants me to?!” Serge groaned. There must be a conspiracy to have him killed in womanhood or so it seemed. He felt as bad as he had felt when all these women turned up here in search for the things his brother had promised so generously. “She waitresses”, he said, glaring first at Cecile, then at Genevieve. “And I would be rather thankful if the both of you got a move on doing exactly that now, so I can prepare whatever it is these people want. Where do they come from anyhow? I don’t know them. And what is this?” Cecile bandaged his hand and looked on the piece of paper where she had noted the order. “Tirami su? Are you crazy? When did I become an Italian chef?” “I go”, said Genevieve with a withering look and moved to leave the kitchen, “you can make Zabaglione, can’t you?” “Sure”, Serge grunted while Cecile put the bandage on him rather longishly. “And this girl is gone when I come back”. “Don’t be ridiculous, Geneviève”, said Serge, “she leaves when I tell her”. “I leave whenever I want”, said Cecile and looked at both of them. “And I know full well you have no reason to be angry at me. My brother just sent me a note that you called him. He was quite – surprised”. 

Geneviève stopped in full movement. Time seemed to stand still for the moment. Serge looked at Cecile, then at Geneviève. Geneviève looked at Cecile. “Your brother?” “You called Etienne? What on earth for?”, asked Serge and sat down onto the wooden chair he had standing at the sink for a reason he had completely forgotten. At the moment he had forgotten everything. “He’s your brother?”, asked Geneviève again. “Oh yes and I know everything about you. You have no reason to play the mistreated wife here, you – Medusa”. Serge put his head into his hands while the clamour in the bar for food and drinks got louder, the two women stood two feet apart and stared at each other. Then Geneviève left for the bar. “Later, Mademoiselle. You better be here to talk when I get back”. “You are mad”, said Cecile. Serge just nodded. Everything was mad, he himself included.

So you came back to good old Europe?”, Pierre restarted the conversation again when they both had smoked their cigarettes. Frederic made a strange sound. “Obviously”. Tough cookie, he had known that. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Frederic shrugged. It was only now that Pierre noticed he had been badly beaten up. Not today, not yesterday, perhaps a week ago. Freddy noticed him noticing and shrugged. “Had to leave the place. They made that quite – urgent”. Pierre nodded. He knew all the evidence against Frederic, had followed his fate from afar as soon as he knew about it. Serge hadn’t talked about all that for quite a while, it had only been after an especially annoying woman had entered the bar one evening, sure that her money had bought her special favours of Serge. Which it hadn’t, Serge made that quite clear, but needed him to back that up. Then he had had to tell him. “You didn’t have your trial yet?” Frederic shrugged again. “Seems they take their time to dig everything up”. Was that a grin? “You’re okay in jail?”, Pierre asked incredulously. He himself would have rather killed himself than go there. He wouldn’t survive anyhow but that wasn’t the point. Frederic shrugged again. “Not that bad here. Would have been worse elsewhere. And you have a bed, get fed, have the days to yourself mostly. Of course, the nights can be tough”. “Yes”, said Pierre not sure if this demeanor was the real thing, “I can imagine”. “No you can’t”, said Frederic, “but I have a lot to think about so it never gets – boring”. Pierre sighed. This would be even harder than he thought.

“So you are happy to stay in this prison cell for the rest of your life?” Frederic shrugged again but there seemed to be a tiny crack in his mask. “If it can’t be helped”. Pierre leant onto the table, getting closer. Yes, bad bruises. “And if it could?” The crack widened. There was a sound as if of a sob. “I can’t imagine how, but … I can’t even begin to hope again”, said Frederic and his head sank down onto the table, his shoulders moving heavily. That was the moment Pierre decided he would do anything to get his lover’s brother out of this. 

In the bar, life went on. Nobody had been killed yet. The two women worked together and when there was nothing much left to do and Geneviève talked to an old customer who had always had an eye on her, even if he could have been her grandfather, he looked a bit like Al Pacino and she was quite fond of him and sat at his table, drinking something Serge couldn’t make out and he himself hadn’t poured, he shrugged and winked at Cecile who raised an eyebrow at him. He nodded with his head to the kitchen and went there. She followed him and found him in the corner that wasn’t directly to be seen from the door to the bar. He looked there but it seemed safe to do this now. He grabbed the young girl’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. Blue. This fucking blue again. “You’re not gonna talk to her here. Leave. Now.” She blinked but didn’t move. “Have nowhere to go”. “What?”, Serge asked irritated. “What about your mother?” Cecile snorted. Serge made a rocking gesture with his head. Yes, she had a point there. “Threw me out ages ago. You know that”. “Yes. Kind of”, Serge said, looking nervously at the door. He had often thought that Geneviève had supernatural powers in knowing exactly when and where not to turn up. And then doing exactly that.


	7. VII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more of the triple couple.

“That useless boyfriend you had?”, he asked now, without much hope. She snorted, a very unladylike sound. “As you said. Useless and had”. The girl nearly grinned as if she was enjoying this. Perhaps she did, all things considered. “And where were you going anyway?”, he hissed. She shrugged again, nerves that girl had. “Well, I thought you could…” “What?”, asked Serge, “Are you mad? Now is not the time or place to break the news to the family”. “Well she kind of knows already, doesn’t she?”, the girl had the nerve to say. Serge had to think really fast, something he didn’t like especially but was rather good at. He took his keys out of his pockets. “You know where I live. Go there. I think about this later. Go. Now”. The girl took the keys, kissed him on the nose and ran off. “I thought you’d never say that”. Serge sat down onto the stool. Suddenly his burned hand hurt more and he felt a sense of impending doom. “Can’t be helped just now”.

Geneviève entered the kitchen, the girl must just have met her on her way out. “Where’s she going?”, she asked, coming at Serge, not sounding interested in the answer at all. “Home”, said Serge and knew he sounded like a cat who had just been hit on the tail. Genevieve just shrugged and looked around, then moved faster and sat down onto Serge like on a horse. Serge gulped. “You know what”, she whispered into his ear, “I thought we could go home early and as we are alone could have a really nice evening together, just like in the good old times. A - l – o – n - e”. Serge gulped again and perhaps wanted to say something but her lips came closer and closer and her hand moved through his hair and the other moved down his forefront and all he could do was make a gurgling sound and hope he’d come out of all of this alive.

Pierre looked at the man in the room through the window from the outside waiting for the boss of the Marseille police - his old enemy. This was completely useless, he knew it, but he had to at least try. Frederic knew what he had done and wasn’t really sorry for it, he had ancient issues with his brother, his mother and all the family but knew it wasn’t an excuse only an explanation and was ready to face any penalty that was given to him. How he had looked at him with his broken big blue eyes was more than Pierre could stand and that was what made him ready to fight. The big muscular guy who always wore ill-fitting clothes came and Pierre knew this would be really hard now. He looked at Frederic again. This would so be worth it. In the end. He turned around to face the other man who was grinning him in the face in a way that made Pierre’s blood boil. But he stayed cool. He had to. Too much was at stake. The life of this man and the happiness of the man he had chosen. “My old friend, Pierre”, the man said, grinning menacingly and Pierre didn’t even want to think his name. “What can I do for you?” Pierre grit his teeth and said a sentence that was perhaps the hardest he had ever said in his whole life, including the one he had said to his mother telling her about living with a man. “What do you want from me if you give him to me?”

The man looked taken aback but caught himself soonish. There was no reason to believe he would do anything for him. There was no reason to believe he would abide by the law. A really ugly smile went over his face. “Well well well”, he said, and of course he said it in French, “not so fast. Let’s relish that. Never thought you’d come back and ask me a favour. I want to enjoy that”. Pierre gritted his teeth, then looked at the man in the little room again, looking lost, playing tough. “I know you do. I have all the time in the world. Just enjoy and take your time”. The other man laughed. It was not a nice sound. “Oh I will, I will. But first I want to see what’s so interesting in this man who made you come back here. Shall we?” He waved his hand to the door inside the room where Frederic was sitting staring at the wall. There was nothing Pierre would have liked less at the moment but he had no choice. He smiled even if all his teeth hurt doing so and came closer to the door. He just hoped Freddy wouldn’t ruin it all. Or would be completely ruined by this man. 

Serge tried to breathe regularly on the way home. He had no idea was awaited him there, but his fears were growing the closer they came. He had tried all he could to stall, somehow hoping for a wonder, a deus ex machina, something, anything, to help him out, Pierre coming back, but no call, no note, no nothing, only Genevieve bound on seducing him and carrying him home to – go further. They could have stayed in the bar, and he tried that, or they could have taken a bottle of Rouge and go to the river, quite romantic if a bit cold at this time of the year, but no, as soon as the woman was happy with the state she had worked him up to – and that was fast, truth be told, it was not that he was anti per se, it was only he had no idea how to pull that off now, at home, with the other woman waiting and he knew Genevieve’s anger would be only fueled incredibly by anything they did here when they came home – she dragged him behind her and nearly ran all the way home. He thought it cute and really romantic and would have really loved to get into the mood more, but – what had he thought? He could have given Cecile money for a hotel, couldn’t he? Now he didn’t even have a minute to call her, to warn her. But she must surely know they would be coming home, mustn’t she? Or was that giving to much credit to a young person with nothing to lose?

He just didn’t know, he just dreaded it, knowing full well that he should have talked to Geneviève about this long ago, the minute he had allowed Cecile into his life, dragged more like. It was his fault, as always, and both women would never let him forget that. It would come to the worst: he would have to talk. Talk to them. Listen to them. And talk about his feelings. He’d rather jump into the Rhone himself now. Geneviève suddenly stood as if feeling his apprehension and she surely did, she knew him so well, even better, well longer than Pierre did, and turned around to him, laughing at him, laughing about him, then kissing him and moving into him in a way that let him forget all his thoughts for a much too short moment, but then they came again and grew exponentially the closer they came to their home.

Pierre and his former colleague whom we don’t even want to honour by giving him a name were in the room together with Frederic Dupont. Pierre concentrated on biting his lips and silently praying to a God he had long forgotten that Freddy would make it without jumping over the table and throttle the other man or completely break down and cry. No that it would have disturbed him, he was all for letting feelings flow, in other people, but he knew Freddy would never forget that too. He had come to know him as a man driven by the fears and feelings of his youth, of always coming second after glorious Serge, that much so that he had sought his revenge and made his living by pretending to be him. That was disgusting and sad in equal measure but he had an inkling his former colleague wouldn’t have any soft feelings. He had never shown him those, and if he had learned one thing in his long life then that when people showed themselves to be assholes through and through, trust them. Yes, there might always be a spark of something good and pure in them, from the little child they had been long ago, but it was not his job to bring up the spark in them but bring the bad stuff in them to a stop. Usually. Somehow it felt totally different with this one. Was it only because he was Serge’s brother? Or was here – more? As he now watched the other man under the unrelenting questions and insinuations of his colleague, sitting up proudly, then shrinking into himself and even moving on his chair like a hospitalized child, Pierre Ricard, the former elite soldier in the Legion and chef de police couldn’t help feeling – sympathy. And suddenly understood more of all the former suspects he had ever talked to than before. He sure was doomed.

Serge was desperate. For more reasons than one. This could all have been so good and great if only that girl wasn’t waiting in the flat upstairs. Serge honestly thought of stopping drinking then and there, because he felt his brain must have been totally foggy for weeks, since he had taken on Cecile as an employee. For – reasons. Without telling anyone and hoping somehow all would come to a happy end. A Christmas miracle perhaps. But Christmas was still far away and he was …wait wait wait… What had Cecile said to Geneviève? Somehow he had totally forgotten that they had presented him with a weapon to not be killed on the spot but holding them off long enough to … explain. If explain he must. He rather not. But… He took Geneviève’s arms that were around his neck off of him and pushed her gently away from him. Her eyes glittered in the moonlight and she was totally enthralling and all that and it was really hard to do this. Holding her hands with his he asked: “Why on earth did you call Etienne? After all this time? Suddenly? Or do you talk on a regular basis? Have been all the time? What on earth for?” Geneviève sighed. She let him feel he should let go of her hands now. Her light went out. The light in her. Serge shook his head. He should go to drama class again. His thoughts were a sight to behold. “Let’s get upstairs.” “No”, said Serge, holding her hands again and then hugging her tight as she began to shiver. “Everything we can do upstairs we can do here too”. Geneviève raised her eyebrows. “Don’t be ridiculous”. Serge grinned. “Well okay, you have a point there”. But neither could they do that upstairs, not with that third person around. Serge felt like someone was throttling all life out of him. No. No. No. No. Geneviève kissed him again, urgently. Serge sighed. Deeply.

“What is this all about?” Geneviève sighed too and laid her forehead to his. “I was going to talk to you in the morning but then Pierre came and I should talk to the both of you, but he ran off and then …” “You called Etienne of all people?”, Serge asked incredulously. Geneviève shrugged. “Well it’s not as if I have so many people to talk left, haven’t I?” Serge sighed again. Totally true. Not many people talked to Geneviève, she was somehow much more of an outcast than the men were. Double morals, just like in the time of witches. Even their families… “Are you coming up now? It’s sure much cosier up here”, a voice came from above and both Serge and Genevieve, deep into an embrace, looked up. Then Geneviève jumped away from Serge. “What the hell?” Serge sighed. “Okay. Let’s talk. Upstairs please.” He thought about saying ‘don’t start to fight, please’ but that was too late anyhow. Geneviève stormed upstairs like a whole army in one woman. Serge followed as someone going to the gallows.

Pierre and Frederic had made it outside. Pierre still didn’t know how, but he knew he would pay for that later, but that was for later, now was the time to run as fast as they could lest the police chef changed his mind. Or had just been joking when he allowed him to take Freddy with him to Avignon and sign a warrant he’d be back for the trial. Things like that were done, nobody talked about it in the open, the politicians didn’t want that out, but the jails were overcrowded and if you had enough money, things could be arranged. In this case it wasn’t about money. It was about – well, he didn’t know yet but would learn. Some time. Perhaps when he would have nearly forgotten he owed the bastard, then he would come. Or not. Perhaps he would be lucky and die before that. Now was now and they had to leave the place as fast as they could. Which was not so very fast in the case of Freddy. He breathed heavily and had to stand again. Pierre looked at him and noticed only now how slim Freddy was. Nearly – really thin. “When have you eaten last?”, he asked and Freddy laughed, a laugh that ended in a cough. “Food was not that good in jail”. Pierre looked around and put an arm around the thin waist of the man. He had no fat on his body himself, but this was a totally different thing. “Sorry to touch you”, he muttered, “but we have to leave. Now. Or else…”. “Yes”, said Freddy and leant into his touch, “or else”. “And that doesn’t come from the bad food in jail. You must have been going hungry for quite a while”, Pierre said and opened the door to the car. Freddy made it to the other seat alone, then looked at him, his eyes as big and blue and open as the other ones he knew. “Now you saved me I have to humiliate myself and tell you everything?”, Frederic asked.


	8. VIII

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more of Serge and family

Pierre was taken aback, then nodded, a short nod of admitting the other had a point there. “No of course not, sorry. Hold on, I’ll be going strong now to get us out of here”, Frederic lay back into his seat and grinned. “Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?”, Pierre laughed and went onto the gas. “Exactly”. Pierre felt the gaze of the other man when they more flew then drove through Marseille. “Thank you. For everything. And would tell you – everything. But not now”. With that he fell asleep just like that as if he hadn’t been sleeping right in weeks, which probably was the case. Pierre smiled and drove through the night.

Serge went up after Geneviève very slowly. Would come to his own hanging soon enough. The door stood open and he heard the indistinct voices of the women from the living room. He went into the kitchen first. What about another bottle of wine? No. Rather not. Instead he set the kettle for a cup, make that a pot of tea. He rummaged through the different bags in the cupboard. Totally not his business, normally, but, ah okay, lavender and honey, should be soothing. Couldn’t be soothing enough. He prepared the tea and was grateful for the few minutes on his own, away from the storm he could hear raging. Speaking of which – it wasn’t loud anymore. Perhaps they had confided everything there was and were now best friends ready to kill him? Women had a way of doing the most unpredictable things. Serge thought it a disgrace to be outside hiding in the kitchen for much longer and put the can, three cups and some brown sugar he found in the vicinity onto a tray and brought it into the living room, first showing the tray as a kind of white flag. “Oh don’t be ridiculous, Serge, come in”, he heard his wife say. Serge rolled his eyes and did as he was told. What could he do anyhow?

The women seemed to be quite at peace with each other which didn’t bode well for Serge. In his experience two women together meant two women against him. How they changed sides ever again and so quick had always been beyond his grasp and he had always not felt really at ease with them. They were a miracle, Geneviève most of all even after all those years. Cecile had made herself a cozy home on the big couch and Serge made an effort to not think about the things that had happened on this couch nearly before this girl had been born. Well, not quite, Geneviève hadn’t let him keep his old stuff. She was now sitting on the footrest, the wide chair on one side of the big C that formed the couch, one leg pulled up under her and both looked at him. Serge managed not to gulp and get the tray to the table in one piece. “Lavender?”, asked Cecile and crinkled her nose. “Wouldn’t have taken you for a tea type”. “Am not”, said Serge and sat down as far away as he could without leaving the room, on the “visitor Chair” as he and Pierre jokingly called it, the chair on the other side of the table, the one no one of them ever used when they were together in here, normally they would all cuddle together on the big couch and talk and laugh and in rare cases watch the telly. And never before had anyone served lavender tea here. But never before had there been anyone apart from them three in here. Geneviève looked at him and Serge felt she could sense all that was going on inside of him. Which might be good if she could sense too, that … “I think tea is a good idea”, Geneviève said, “considering the circumstances”. “Circumstances?”, Serge asked rather dumbly, and got up again to fill the cups when he noticed the warning gaze Geneviève shot the girl. Just as he had thought. Give women two minutes and they talk about everything and you as a man can run after the information like a horse after the carrot. He sat down again and took a sip of the tea rather before the smell hit his nose. He looked disgusted.

Geneviève and Cecile both laughed. Geneviève took a sip and sighed. “Okay. Let’s do this as honorable as possible, shall we?” Serge would have liked to jump up and run around the table in lieu of throttling her. Instead he simply said: “Yes. I always am for that. Why the fuck did you have to call Etienne?” Another warning gaze from Geneviève to the girl which was irritating the shit out of him. “Let’s start differently”, said Geneviève, “since when is this girl here in your life? And why didn’t you tell me? Us, perhaps? Or is Pierre in on this?” “No, he isn’t. Why should he be? I’m simply helping a family member”. Both Geneviève and Cecile snorted. “Yes sure. And you know full well that Pierre would do anything for you. Cover up for you included”. Serge got really hot. He hated this kind of inquisition and how he always seemed to be on the accused side. “He doesn’t have to. What do you think of me? She’s my niece, for fuck’s sake”. “Words, Serge”, said Geneviève who spoke milder the louder Serge got. A trick he hated with his whole heart, too. Cecile made a disgusted face too. “He’s an old man. Please. Why would I?” Geneviève looked at the girl really sternly. “You made quite a show of it in the kitchen”. The girl laughed. It was a really sunny laughter that could light up your life. “As you said. A show. It was so much fun bringing you up. And call it revenge for Etienne and some kind of revenge for Serge too. He’s a good man, even if he’s old and a softy, and you could just have a bit more respect for him”. 

“Thank you very much”, said Serge trying for not hurt and honoured and all. “What do you think of me, anyhow? Yes, I did things but way back and I never would… And yes, I have you and Pierre and am 40 years old, thank you very much for your trust in my stamina, but…” Words failed him as the feelings overcame him, and it was all just so unfair. He knew he could talk like that as much as he liked, and feel treated unfairly, she still would go to the core of the thing and that was exactly what he wouldn’t do. Had no choice though. Not with Geneviève. And who would be the first to cry afterwards and throw things at him and go into the water? Right. Not him. But it would always again be his fucking fault.  
When he looked up next, Geneviève was sitting at his feet and somehow they were alone. The young girl was far away behind the smell of lavender. “Then why exactly did you do this?”, Geneviève asked softer than she had ever talked to him. He tried to press back the tears into his eye sockets but wasn’t too successful. “We have no children. I felt so happy with you and Pierre and knew I could do nothing for my brother. And Etienne – well that was an epic fail. In a way. So I looked out for others. And Cecile – well, she was in a state to leave everything behind and I tried to help her on her way. That’s it”.

“Which I thank you for, really, uncle”, came the voice of the girl from somewhere behind the veil of tears between Serge and the world. Serge felt his hands being held and kisses dropped onto them and cried some more. And there was so much fluid it felt like rain and he looked at Geneviève and she was crying too and there was understanding and a lot of love. “And you didn’t tell me because …”, she began in so little of a voice he nearly didn’t hear it. But he did. He gulped. “Because I didn’t want to talk about exactly that. I didn’t want to remind you of – the past. I didn’t want to make you feel as if I missed something cause I don’t. But I was afraid you…” “…would go into the water again, because you help other children because we have none”, said Geneviève and her voice too was drowning in tears. Serge nodded. Spoken out like that it sounded foolish. Or if he had thought Geneviève foolish. Which he didn’t. Perhaps the women were right and sometimes it helped spelling things out. Talking of which… But he couldn’t say a thing because Geneviève just pulled him down to her so that he fell from the chair and onto her and kissed him with everything that was in her and behind Serge’s closed eyes his whole life with Geneviève played out, good and bad, funny and sad, and he kissed her back and cried and it felt like a really really big thing, THE BIG THING really until a voice interrupted them: “Oooh, that’s really disgusting. Don’t you have a home?” Serge came up and Geneviève too, both dazed and confused and they looked at each other and laughed a little and then Serge said: “I don’t know, young thing, but I always thought this was our home”. “And you’re a guest here”, said Geneviève, “you might as well have gone away now and be decent”. The young woman laughed. “And miss all the fun?” Geneviève sat up again and glared at Cecile. “You are really Frederic’s daughter”. “Ah”, said the girl, sipping at the whisky she must have poured herself before the two others had arrived. “You know him too? And who is best? Just asking?”

Serge held Geneviève when she made to jump at the girl’s throat and pulled her close to him again. “I didn’t know him that way. I knew him before ... He always wanted the impossible”. Serge waged his head. “Yes, in a way, but … there were reasons for that”. “Reasons”, fumed Geneviève, “reasons”. “By the way”, said Serge, “were you going to tell me your reason for calling his son?” He saw her lose all her steam and change a glance with Cecile who was about to open her mouth, but something that went on between the two women made her stop. “No I wasn’t”, said Geneviève, “I’m tired. Perhaps tomorrow. I go sleep in my atelier. Bonne nuit”. Up she went and left Serge speechless and the girl grinning and sipping at her whisky eyeing her uncle over the rim of the glass. Serge noticed he was holding his breath. He had nothing left in him anymore to counter an attack of the girl who would jump him just for fun. She had it in her, he knew that. She was family after all. He had done worse things in his youth and never thought of the consequences. This one would even do it for the consequences, for watching all of them squirm in the aftermath. Perhaps he was really a total softy and an idiot to boot or had come much too late to save anyone. He now needed to save himself. “Bonne nuit”, he said to the girl and left for the big bedroom. He would feel very alone in there but with some luck there would be the smell of the others still hanging in the sheets and he would lose the smell of this treacherous lavender.


End file.
